Tuesday, August 07, 2012

They had found skeletal material from up to 200 warriors, who may have all come from the same battle. Cuts and slashes on the skeletons showed they had died violently but nothing is as yet known about the identity of the killers, or their victims. In February this year it was announced that the Carlsberg Foundation has granted 1.5 million DKK for further research and excavations in Alken Wetlands. Archaeologists and other experts from Skanderborg Museum, Moesgård Museum and Aarhus University hope to answer some of their research questions this summer when a major excavation will take place near Alken, a small town outside Skanderborg on the Jutland peninsula.

The remains are from the beginning of the Roman Iron Age, though Roman armies never reached so far north, only as far as modern day Germany, a few hundred kilometres to the south of the Danish site. However, this conflict could have been a consequence of the Roman expansion and this discovery could shed new light on what happened in those centuries beyond the borders of the Roman Empire.

An archaeological treasure troveIt is thought many more bodies will be unearthed over the course of July and August. Aarhus University archaeologist Mads Kähler Holst explained "last time we dug here, we didn't actually reach the perimeter of the finds, so we don't know the extent of them. So there' s no doubt that the dig will result in many more skeletons. If we are lucky, what we've already seen may just be the beginning."

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